Chương 22: The Dim Mak

Dark clouds covered the sky and bled out rain by the time I walked out of the police station. It was probably late afternoon, but the shrouded purple atmosphere made it feel like it was night already. I had no umbrella. A wig, a subway pass, and two hundred dollars made up the majority of my possessions and I wasn't going to waste my money on something just to keep a little rain off my head. I was used to treading water, anyway.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I took off the purple hair, hid my face deep inside my hoodie and walked to the subway station. Almost busted, almost had my cover blown. I went halfway across town to get away from that woman and her snooping and wound up in a police interrogation room with her anyway. Luckily there were bleeding hearts in the super education system that cared about kids getting bullied by bureaucrats. Erin Brokovitch looked like she was about to tear the place down if they tried to keep me there.

True to her word, she did call Patty's boss and from what I could hear, he was not pleased with his employee's "illegal harassment of an orphan." Not being from the nineteenth century, I didn't often use that word. Gran had raised me for almost as long as I could remember, so I didn't really think of myself as parent-less. But at least it would get the terminator in heels off my back. There was one good thing about all of this, one way to make up for all of the chaos.

As I walked along the bare streets to the subway terminal, I whispered the word 'system' and watched my green notifications pop up. Congratulations you have stopped and apprehended a class 0 criminal from completing petty larceny. You have been awarded 10 hero points. My heart dropped. Ten hero points for all of that work? I would need to do that forty-nine more times just to upgrade my intelligence to five. There was another notification though. Congratulations!

You have escaped the authorities in a police station using deception and trickery. 30 villain points awarded. I spent the whole day trying to help people and I wound up earning more as a villain? The subway back to the park had lost the magic it had this morning. My hoodie was damp, people around me were drunk, and a pile of brown rags smelling of feces in the corner shouted about aliens every minute. Mostly it was the sinking feeling that my bag with the stun baton and smoke bomb wouldn't be there.

I trudged through puddles across the square to the concrete stairs where I left my bag and, sure enough, it was gone. Ironically enough, I was one more victim of robbery in the park today. Of course it was pointless to even check, but there had been just the smallest of hope that maybe the thieving hands of Chicago might have been more benevolent today. That maybe this could have been the silver lining on the otherwise downpour of this day. I had lost my weapon.

We had some ups and downs, it had been used for both good and bad. The urinator was a strong weapon, and the smoke bomb hadn't even been deployed once, but now I had nothing. I could try to fight crime with just my powers, stop time at the exact right spot, and… hopefully not die. Or I could carry a knife, a gun, and you know… harm someone in a lethal or life-threatening way. Rain kept falling and I walked aimlessly around.

My peripheral vision told me that there was a Gold's gym, McDonald's, Schlotzky's, Starbucks, and jiu jitsu place around me, their windows glowing yellow against the grayness of the day. It seemed like a chicken or the egg situation over who came first- the people trying to make you fat or the people trying to get you in shape, but it was a brilliant business strategy. I could go into one of the food places to get something to eat, where it was warm and dry, but I didn't. Comfort wasn't an option now, action was.

Water soaked through every fiber of my clothing, weighing down on my skin so that it felt like I was carrying a hundred pound load. Orion had already closed up shop on his little device market, so he probably couldn't give me any more. I could use the new money to buy my own, but what if this happened again? Even with a super power, I still relied on the weapons to do the real work, the true fighting. When you're a hundred and ten pound waif, you don't exactly think of yourself as a fighting machine.

Especially when you're up against two hundred pound gorillas who could snap your bones like twigs. My eyes caught the windows of the jiu jitsu place, watching the figures inside training. There were people my size in there, pulling at arms and legs so that the big guys charging at them fell over. Folding them into the mat origami style, like it was a dance more than a fight. If they could do it, I could too. This was my sign.

The universe had a giant metaphorical arrow pointing at this place to tell me that this was the answer to my problems. The door of the dojo jangled as I opened it and stepped inside, feet squishing into my wet sneakers. The air was hot and muggy, with everything smelling of plastic perspiration from the mats all over the place where sweaty people got thrown onto them. Grunts, yells, and smacks abounded as men and women tossed each other around, grappling on the floor.

A man in what looked like a very official bath robe walked up to me as I looked around.

"Looking for classes?" he asked. His lips turned up in a professional expression, but his eyes were taking in the hair soaked to my head and my sweater dripping water all over his floors.

"Um… maybe? Can I look around for a bit?"

"Sure, just stay off the mats. You'll get them all wet and you can't wear shoes while walking on them." The mat restriction eliminated the majority of the training room so I took a seat against the wall and just watched. There was a girl my size wrestling a guy that must have had fifty pounds on her. They twisted around on the ground until she got one leg over his head and another across his chest. She grabbed his arm and pulled it against her body.

You could hear muffled screams and the guy flopped around like a fish before slapping the mat frantically with his free arm, so it must have hurt. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. She was good, very good, but the whole encounter lasted half a minute. The opponents I fought moved in slow motion or paused in time completely. I needed to use that, not ignore it. The fights had to be quick so that I could escape without being caught.

What was the point of stopping time if I was just going to roll around on the ground for a couple minutes trying to choke them out after? My serendipitous martial arts dojo was turning out to be a dud. I walked back over to the guy by the front door.

"I'm looking to learn to fight, but I'm not sure if this is the right fit for me." He laughed and flashed a salesman's smile.

"You would be surprised. I know all the throwing and locking techniques can look intimidating, but Jiu Jitsu is all about using your opponents strength against them and locking them up. The more power they throw at you, the more you have to use against them."

"I don't suppose you have any techniques that hit hard and leave your opponent unable to fight back?" He scratched the back of his head and looked around.

"I mean, Jiu Jitsu is a versatile fighting style that's perfect for fighting people bigger than you and we do have some hard hitting strikes, but to be honest, if you are really looking for hard hits and not grapples and throws, then I have a friend who works at a Muay Thai place seven blocks from here." His left hand lifted to show which direction I should take.

"You can try them." I nodded.

"Thanks, I really appreciate your help." He was already taking out a mop as I walked out the door. Seven blocks later, my sodden, squeaking shoes brought me to a place called Muay Thai Kickboxing Club. On the front was a picture of a guy kicking a harmless, soft-looking bag. Guess that would be on my level. The sign was honest advertising. Inside was a bunch of people kicking- kicking bags, kicking mats, even kicking each other's legs. That last part didn't make sense.

If I kicked someone's leg with my leg, wouldn't we both just hurt ourselves? I definitely would. A tall guy in shorts and no shirt walked up. He wore a sweatband around his forehead, looking like he was about to fight Rocky, not Daniel from The Karate Kid.

"Hi, are you looking to sign up for classes?" Deja vu. Never going to own a gym if I have to repeat that phrase all day long.

"Maybe, I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I just came from a Jiu Jitsu place and they said you guys are good at knocking people out with a hit." He shrugged.

"I mean, if I kick somebody in the head, they are definitely going down. Muay Thai is a lot about kicks and has some great strikes. We are a full contact sport, so it's not about playing around with points. We really teach you how to defend yourself with some excellent striking techniques." Again with the motion and strength. Maybe I'd watched too many karate and anime movies with Gran before where there was always some ancient strike against a mysterious point that immediately disabled a full grown man.

Gee, why didn't I question before if that was just made up? Still, you never knew. I scratched behind my head, which felt about the same as digging my fingers into seaweed.

"But can you teach me like a magic place to hit someone to knock them out?" He frowned in confusion.

"Yeah, I guess. It's like I said earlier, you kick someone in the head and they go down." I tried to see it- my matchstick leg landing against another person full in the face, hard enough for them to drop unconscious on the ground. Blood spraying from their broken nose, gushing from their mouth. I'd probably have to step carefully around them to not slip on their teeth lying on the concrete. My stomach was still likely to erupt whenever blood and gore were involved.

Sure, maybe some of the perps I would go up against would deserve a full on beating, like John with his lady of the night. Still, especially after my experience with the teenage boy, if I could avoid gruesome harm, I would.

"You don't have anything like in Star Trek where you pinch the nerve and they drop?" He laughed and it wasn't the friendly sales guy laugh like at the last place. It was the 'I don't even know what you just said' kind. Like I had just asked if unicorns were real or if two plus two equaled one hundred.

"No, we don't do that. That's just TV, it's not real." Well, there we go. I took a deep breath and sighed, staring down at the water collecting around my feet. Guess I only had uncomfortable choices left. An asian woman, black hair cut at her ears and looking around thirty, stepped up from behind him.

"It's not fake. The Dim Mak is real and my uncle is a master at it." Rambo turned around to glare at her.

"Rita, your uncle is a seventy-five year old acupuncturist. He is not the master of the death touch. It's not real." She huffed.

"You believe what you want, but my grandpa is a master of meridians and could have you drooling on the floor with a single poke." My mouth hung open, staring at her. Perhaps unicorns were real. I stepped forward.

"I don't want anything to do with 'the death touch', but I would very much like to learn 'the drool touch'. Could he teach me?" She looked at me, sizing me up.

"What do you want to learn it for? My grandpa is very particular about who he teaches." I shrugged my shoulders.

"I live in Chicago? It's very unsafe? I'm also poor." Rita nodded her head.

"Fair enough." Rambo butted in again.

"Do not go to some kooky acupuncturist for self defense training. There is no magic touch to knock people out. Train here. We can teach you to punch someone in the jaw and leave them on the ground trying to remember their name." Rita spun around to glare at him.

"My uncle is not a kook! Striking chi points is hard but possible." The dojo had quieted down as people began to stop their sparring to look at what was causing the problem.

"Fine, you think it works- prove it. Show me some fancy chi strikes." Rambo was turning a little red. Must've had an extra dose of steroids this morning and his temper was now getting the better of him. Rita took a step forward right in front of him. Her hand reached up to brush the hair out of her eyes and then without warning it flew towards him. She didn't make a fist; her hand was open but straight as it chopped down into his shoulder. Rambo's face glared at her with contempt right up until she made contact.

There was a small pop, his eyes glazed over, and then he went down hard, very much unlike his First Blood character. Luckily, he was standing on a mat as he fell face first into the ground. My voice came out quiet amongst the gasps and cheers of the gym.

"So… that's the Dim Mak?" Rita laughed.

"No. That's the brachial nerve cluster. He will be up in a moment or two. Chinese medicine was working with chi and meridians four thousand years ago. Western medicine only mapped it a few hundred years ago and called it nerves." I looked down at the back of Rambo's head, still unmoving.

"Cool. Kind of wish you guys had won the technological race for world dominance a hundred years ago." Rita reached down to help her opponent back to his feet as he regained consciousness.

"Don't we all?" She sighed loudly, then turned back to me.

"You sure you want to learn? My uncle can be a bit intense and he doesn't like taking students." My mind filled with the possibilities of using my power to freeze time and knocking out criminals before they could do anything. It would certainly go a lot better than all the near death experiences I'd had before.

"I'm sure." She turned slightly to grab a pen and paper from the front desk and began writing on it, as Rambo struggled to understand what was happening around him.

"Okay, you can meet him tomorrow at noon at this building." She handed me the slip of paper and I took it, glancing down to see the words 'Mr. Cheng's Best Acupuncture Service' with the address below.

"But I can't make any promises. Like I said, he's very selective. He will not take you if he thinks you are weak." Her eyes glanced over me with a twist to her mouth as if they already knew the answer to that question.